Questions and answers of Asleep in the Valley

Asleep in the Valley broad / long / descriptive important questions and answers for Class - 12th (WBCHSE and other board)

Q. Justify the title of the poem "Asleep In The Valley".

Ans :- Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Asleep In The Valley" is a very beautiful poem in which he has presented the reality of war. But the poet does not reveal much about war.He gives a natural description of a valley where a slow stream flows.He has focused much on the scenic beauty of the valley than destructive consequence of until the very end of the poem  .He proceeds with the description of a young soldier who is blissfully sleeping.His body is stretched in the heavy bushes.His feet are among the flowers.These flowers may Symbolically refer to homage to the martyr paid by nature because his devotion has snatched his life away.So he is sleeping forever peacefully.The soldier is a victim of war that has been made clear by the expression 'the two red holes' . It exposes how inhumanly the soldier is victimised in war.These red holes are nothing but 'bullet wounds'. So the title of the poem is very appropriate.

Q. Evaluate 'Asleep in the Valley' as an anti-war poem. 

                            OR

How is Rimbaud's attitude towards war revealed in the poem 'Asleep in the Valley'?

Ans :-  'Asleep in the Valley' is undoubtedly a war poem.  In the poem Rimbaud expresses the fruitlessness of war. He has first-hand experience of war and reveals the horror of warfare. Initially, a young soldier is found sleeping in a beautiful sunlit valley. But, at the end of the poem a closer look reveals that the soldier has the bullet-wounds: "In his side there are two red holes." The soldier is a victim of war that has been made clear by the expression 'the two red holes' . He will be never awaken again. The young life is unnaturally nipped in the bud. The poem proclaims the futility of war with the contrast of life and nature. Grim death is the inevitability of war and the poem ironically presents the monstrous destruction that a soldier has experience in warfare.It exposes how inhumanly the soldier is victimised in war.

Q. "A soldier, very young, lies open-mouthed" - Who is the ‘soldier’ referred to here? Narrate in your own words how the soldier lies in the valley. 

Ans :- Here the soldier reffered to the unfortunate solder who is the victim of a cruel war fought between France and Germany. He is lying asleep peacefully in the green valley.

           In the poem “Asleep in the Valley”  the poet describes about a picture of a young soldier lying asleep open-mouthed . His head is rested on a bunch of ferns that acts like a pillow and he lies in the heavy undergrowth of the valley under the warmth of the sun. The soldier looks pale but his smile is like an infant’s, gentle weithout guile. His feet are stretched among the flowers. He is sleeping very peacefully. So the poet asks the humming insects not to disturb his peace. His hand is placed on his breast. But the two red holes are the bullet wounds that had penetrated his upper rib. They invariably point at the brutality of warfare in a highly effective manner just as done by Wilfred Owen in his poem "Futility".

Q. Why does the poet ask nature to keep the soldier worm?

Ans :- In the line, ‘Ah, Nature, keep him warm; he may catch cold’, the tenderness the poet feels for the dead soldier is obvious. He implores Nature to keep his body from growing cold. Cold here is symbolic of death. The poet knows the soldier is already dead but he wants his readers to wait till the last line of the poem to figure this important detail out. And that is why he uses the phrase ‘catch a cold’ for its colloquial meaning, alluding to contracting the common respiratory infection. So the poet asks nature to keep the soldier warm.

Q. "His smile ; Is like an infant’s " - Whose ‘smile’ is being referred to here? Why is his smile compared to the smile of an infant? How does Nature take care of him?

Ans :- The ‘smile’ of the young soldier is referred to here.

             In the poem ‘Asleep in the Valley’ the poet presents us a picture of a very young soldier who is sleeping in the valley very peacefully. He is smiling like an infant’s gentle without guile. As a child is the incarnation of purity and mildness, the young soldier’s infant-like smile seems to be free from all the earthly troubles that engulfs the entire world.

          In the poem ‘Asleep in the Valley’ Nature plays a significant role  when it provides the young dead soldier with a pillow made of fern, heavy undergrowth to lie on, sun-soaked bed , flowers at his feet and keeps him warm. Nature treated this dead soldier with the utmost love and care when the entire human civilization has failed to protect him from the clutches of death. Thus Nature plays a mother like role in this poem.

Q. Describe the valley and it's surroundings where the soldier is lying.

Ans :- The poem is written like a telescope which focuses on different parts of the valley and zooms in on the details. The poet focuses on a panoramic view of the valley, from which he moves to the mountains and then the body of the soldier in the meadow. A small stream is flowing through the valley. There are various types of flowers and bushes in that valley. He zooms in on the soldier’s feet which are among the flowers. His pillow is made of fern.Rimbaud waits until the last line of the poem to reveal that the soldier is dead. His delay in portraying the death of the solider is perhaps to heighten the effect and to shock the readers into seeing the negative impacts of war.

Q. " In his side there are two red holes." -  Who is the person referred to here? What do the ‘two red holes’ signify? What attitude of the poet to war is presented here?

Ans :- Here the person referred to  is a dead soldier who seems to be sleeping in the green valley. 

               The 'two red holes' imply that the soldier has been a casualty of the war with two rifle-shots in his side. This scene depicts us that he will never wake up from his deep peaceful sleep.

                 The 'two red holes' reveals the fact that the soldier had been shot dead by using bullets. Thus he is a victim of the cruel and meaningless war. The bullets used in the war caused the two red holes in the side of the young soldier.  The bullet wounds were deep and red. They were not easily noticed because the pity of war is not felt easily untill it hurts someone directly. When everything was looking beautiful in the valley , the two red holes leaves us shocked at the horrible brutality of war. Thus the poet Arthur Rimbaud tries to arise human consciousness against the war which is nothing but sacrifice of young lives meaninglessly.

Q. What techniques have been used by the poet to subvert the after-effect of war.

Ans :- ‘Asleep in the Valley’ is undoubtedly a war poem. But the after-effect of war is subverted by the poetic techniques of the poet. The poet uses subtle techniques to make the war ravaged valley appear bearable. The poet, through this poem, speaks of many things like death, war and life. But mostly, he chooses to focus on the life retained after war is waged and destruction is wrought. The poet’s dilemma here is to either choose death or life, and he chooses life. But with the choice comes the inevitable threat of death. His poem then entangles itself in a dialogue between life and death and uses ‘sleep’, which encompasses both, to provide the main symbology of the poem. We can also see in this poem, the birth of the Symbolist tradition.

Q. How does the poet express the futility of war through his poem ‘Asleep in the Valley’ ? What message does he want to convey ?

Ans :- The French-German war held in 1870 inspired the poet Arthur Rimbaud to write such a masterpiece. The poem 'Asleep in the Valley' by Arthur Rimbaud presents an idyllic description of nature with no direct reference to war. He presents a very young soldier, a victim of the atrocity of war in the poem. He is sleeping peacefully amidst a beautiful valley which is very quiet and sunlit. It seems that he is smiling like an infants, gentle and without guile. Suddenly we discover that there are two red holes in the soldier’s side. It startles all the readers as this image makes us confront the gloom and horrors of war. We become conscious of the tragedy of war and start to believe that war is in reality nothing but an organized butchery of young lives.

         Through the poem the poet wants to convey the message of peace to the entire human civilization. The poet Arthur Rimbaud vividly presents the ironic contrast between the warmth of beautiful nature and the violence of war. The poem ultimately overshadows our mind through the poet’s pity for the war victims. Though it is not a loud protest, the poem poignantly touches the human heart and instills in them the urge to stop war and live peacefully.

Q. What poetic devices have been employed by the poet in the poem Asleep in the Valley.

Ans :- The poet has employed many poetic devices in his poem Asleep in the Valley. Some of them are as follows-‘A small green valley where a slow stream flows/ And leaves long strands of silver’- This poem is rhythmical, and full of alliteration. This is the first instance of Alliteration used in the poem. Alliteration is the occurrence of same sounds or same letters adjacently or in close quarters.‘sun-soaked bed’- this is another instance of Alliteration.‘Ah, Nature, keep him warm; he may catch cold’- this is an instance of an Apostrophe. An apostrophe is a figure of speech used to address an inanimate object or an abstract quality.This is also an act of Personification. Nature is personified as a human being who is to assume the role of a caretaker for the sleeping soldier.‘In his side there are two red holes’- this line is an example of Metonymy. Metonymy is a figure of speech by which the name or meaning of a thing or concept is substituted by its attributes. Instead of writing ‘two bullet holes’, Rimbaud writes ‘two red holes’. Bullets puncture the body and causes bleeding which turns the holes red. Thus, he substitutes the word bullet by red, which represents the quality of the bullet.